


Incommunicado

by relic_amaranth



Category: Supernatural
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Gender-neutral Reader, Language, M/M, Other, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-15
Updated: 2018-02-15
Packaged: 2019-03-18 22:20:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,578
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13690992
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/relic_amaranth/pseuds/relic_amaranth
Summary: Some of the best things are often left unsaid, and the others just need to find the right medium of communication. Gabriel can’t find his words, you can’t find the right ones, but, somehow, you both stumble towards understanding anyways.





	Incommunicado

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by the thought that angels know every method of communication known (and unknown) to mankind, so does Gabriel ever forget that when he’s talking to a human he has to be limited (generally) by geography/time period/species? It was a funny idea that morphed into a more serious (but still mostly fluffy) story. Slight warning for implications that it’s reasonable to assume Reader wouldn’t know Filipino/Tagalog– I try to be as inclusive/nondescript as possible but that part required a little specificity; sorry. Cross-posted to Tumblr.

 

You’re minding your own business, contemplating whether or not you want to spend the effort to go to the store to get something to eat. On one hand– sustenance. On the other hand– bruised ribs from a particularly bitchy ghost who took offense at your insistence that she stop her siren-like B.S. For cripes sake, the last thing you need is for supernatural creatures to start aping each others’ schticks.

You’ve moved on from food and you’re wondering which would be worse –a vampire imitating a werewolf or a werewolf imitating a vampire– when Gabriel bursts into the room like a cyclone. Almost literally; a cold wind blows out from him and leaves swirl around, falling where they may. Gabriel is, himself, annoyed. Not angry, thankfully, because that’s a shitshow and a half, but his lips are pursed and his eyes are narrowed. A little more puckered lip and he’d be pouting.

You can handle a pissy Gabriel. At least, you think you can. That illusion is destroyed when he opens his mouth and all you hear is an inhumane screeching sound that makes you slam your hands over your ears and double over. It actually made your stomach churn and your ribs ache fiercely, but you can only blink in wide-eyed shock and take your hands away from your head as Gabriel looks just as shocked and confused as you feel.

“Gabe?” you ask slowly, your voice a little dim and faded in your own ears. He opens his mouth again and again it’s a shrieking sound, but it’s entirely different– he sounds like a hawk or something and shrill as it is, at least he isn’t going to blow your head out.

This is all very different from the booming sound of an angel though. “Dude. Are you cursed?”

He looks at you with the flattest expression he can, aside from literally making himself two-dimensional.

“Don’t give me that look! What’s wrong with you?”

He grunts, looking even pissier, and blows out of the room. You shut your eyes from the sudden gust and when you open them he is gone, as you expected. Still. “Gabriel? Gabriel!” _Gabriel!_ you pray, but he doesn’t return and you sigh and flop back. You notice that your ears can hear normally again and your ribs don’t hurt. “Thanks. I guess,” you say, because you don’t know what else to say other than ‘what the fuck was that’ and at this point you’d probably get a diatribe in chalkboard screeching. No. Thanks.

 

Gabriel returns to you a few days later when you’ve pulled off at a little tourist alcove on an old highway. The park is in neglectful disrepair but the grass is fine and there’s a nice view of the mountains beyond the tree line. It’s a fine place to have a sandwich and take a break to stretch your legs, and you’re almost done eating when Gabriel suddenly appears, lounging next to a wicker picnic basket placed suspiciously where your lunchbox used to be.

You scarf down the last of your sandwich because you never know if you’ll get to finish your meal when Gabriel shows up. “Hey Gabe. How’s it going?”

“Eh,” he says, as normal as always, and you breathe a silent sigh of relief. “About as good as it can be. You pack anything good for me?”

You raise your eyebrows. “I wouldn’t know. Seems my lunchbox has gone missing.”

“Oh. Such a shame. Let’s see what I have in here then,” he says and sticks his arm in the basket up to his shoulder, because of course he’s Mary Poppins too. However he brings out two items you know you had packed away. “Oh my! Some gourmet crunchy potatoes, mashed for your pleasure,” he says, trying to layer a terrible accent over the last word as he shakes the snack bag of chips. “And finely broken artisanal confections.” He waves the package of cookies.

You snatch both of them and he pouts at you until you roll your eyes, say, “ _Fine_ ,” and split the proceeds with him. He is delighted enough to launch into stupidly entertaining stories that are 95% bullshit as you both snack on the remainders of your lunch. As fine as he is now, though, you can’t get that image of him out of your head, frustrated and unable to speak.

“Helloooooo?” Gabriel waves his hand in front of your face. “That was hilarious and you should be falling over yourself.” He sits back and studies you. “What’s going on in that little corporeal gray matter you’ve got in there?”

You snort. “First of all, that story was more than half-full of lies and I don’t wanna be anywhere near you when Frigga hears you’ve been talking shit on her–”

“That was incredibly flattering! And it was at _most_ only half emphatically exaggerated, for entertainment’s sake!”

“–and secondly…” You study him and he seems fine, so, why not. You’ve asked worse and all he’s done is dodged, so it’s worth a shot. “…What the hell was all the screeching about?”

Gabriel grimaces for a second before the expression slides off his face like water and he shrugs his shoulders, affecting his usual nonchalance. You roll your eyes when he’s not looking. “It was nothing, I just got a little…excited,” he says and smirks at you. “Forgot how to talk to a human.”

He…forgot. How to talk. “Seriously?”

“Hey!” Gabriel pouts but his amusement shines through, like it always does. Still, there’s something earnest in his eyes, so you try and pull back the laughter. A little bit. “It’s not like English is my first language.”

“What was your first language? ‘Incoherent computer shrieking? Were you raised by dial up modem?”

He stares at you for a few seconds, so intent you wonder if you’re about to be horrendously transfigured or find yourself dangling from a tree branch by your ankle or something else that suits Gabriel’s tastes. He leans closer, and closer, but you stand (or rather, sit,) your ground.

Until Gabriel opens his mouth and affects the perfect imitation of hooking up to the internet in the early aughts. It startles you so much you burst out laughing, and with a grin and another swirling dramatic exit, Gabriel leaves you– with about a hundred AOL discs pouring out of the lunchbox-cum-picnic basket.

Yeah, you always try to eat something before Gabriel shows up, because this isn’t even the weirdest thing that can happen. In fact, you gather up the discs. Maybe Dean will indulge you by throwing them for target practice when you meet up with him and Sam again.

 

You don’t even blink when Gabriel comes in (abruptly, uninvited, _again_ ) clicking with words you don’t know. As aggrieved as he is, throwing his arms around and stomping back and forth, he uses the language so easily that the sounds are fairly rhythmic. After a while he intersperses more familiar words in with the unfamiliar language– you’re fairly certain you hear Castiel’s name spoken in a tone of mixed anger and sadness.

That is a language you know.

Your name piques your interest. He shifts from tongue to tongue, some of them seeming familiar but he speaks too fast for you to pick anything out of them. He’s working himself into a tizzy, as he does, and when he alights on some more familiar sounds you brighten. “Oh! I know that one.”

He blinks at you, almost like he had forgotten you were there. Still, you have his attention now, so you start reciting the Filipino spell you had learned. In the middle of it, he suddenly laughs. “Of course. Of course you recognize Tagalog because you had to learn an exorcism.”

“Laugh it up, but that little ditty can stop an aswang in its tracks,” you say. It can also supposedly disorient a tiyanak but you haven’t tested that out. Yet. Hopefully never. “Also, that’s not the _only_ way I know Filipino.”

“Oh yeah? How _else_ do you know it?” Gabriel asks, his voice almost dripping with suggestion.

“Wouldn’t you like to know?” you say primly and turn back to your laptop.

Gabriel laughs again and it’s a little less raw, a little softer around the edges. He hangs over the chair behind you, his chest pressing against the back of your head. “Sugar, you need a life. Something outside of hunting.”

You smile to yourself as he remains and you lean a little against his warmth. “I’m working on it.”

 

You’re finishing clean-up in an old warehouse with Sam and Dean when the place goes dark and thousands of little _somethings_ crash upon you. Rocks? Scraps? You and the Winchesters have no time to even get your hands up before it’s over and done, though that doesn’t stop Dean from whirling around with his gun out. Castiel, freshly arrived, looks utterly perplexed but not alarmed so you take the time to actually look at what fell upon you, now that it’s not blocking out the lights.

You blink, but no, all you can see is indeed covered in tiny pink things and the air smells like…chalk? Piles of them rest on your head and shoulders so you reach up with one hand to grab some of the pink bits for closer inspection.

Yep, candy hearts, adorned with phrases like ‘Grats!’, ‘Happy’ (which probably goes with the one that says ‘Hunting’), and hearts drawn on hearts and, most telling, ones that say ‘Monster Killers’ and ‘Team Free Will(y)’ which, even if other humans did know what you do, can only come from an angel because _who else can get the writing that tiny_?

As Castiel says something to Dean and Dean shouts for Gabriel and Sam tries to dispel the mountain of candy dust clinging to his hair, you can only sigh. “Well, that’s one way to use your words,” you mutter and toss a candy into your mouth.

 

The next time Gabriel shows up, you’re waiting out a storm that has come on strong and sudden. The motel you’re staying in is sturdy enough to withstand it quite admirably, and you hope the gross werewolf preying on pre-teen boys decides to stay home too, because right now there’s nothing you can do if he doesn’t. That thought almost makes you reconsider just how bad it is out there.

But then Gabriel appears. He is soaked through, his eyes are as wild as the storm itself, and he sits on the other bed hard enough to almost break it. He’s speaking lowly under his breath, something you can’t discern. It isn’t spit curses and invectives, but something low, slow, and steady. It’s almost like chanting and when he gets a little louder his voice is more like a bass you’d feel from the car next to you while sitting in traffic. You ignore it, him, and read your book but the sound grows louder, deeper, until you’re almost curled over while it shakes your insides. Gabriel is growling now in a language that probably doesn’t exist anymore and he’s working up to more.

When everything starts to shake you shut your book, get up, grab a towel, and throw it over his head. The rumbling stops abruptly and the room becomes utterly, almost frighteningly quiet. You gently put your hands on top of his head and start drying his hair. He relaxes, little by little, as you massage his scalp.

“Can angels catch a cold?” you ask, murmuring softly but still feeling too loud.

Gabriel’s laugh is harsh enough that his body jerks with the sound. The towel falls down around his shoulders and his smile is so sharp you can almost trace the jagged edges. “No. But I can throw one.” He winks at you. “You want one?”

You shake your head, barely biting back anger. You hate dealing with him like this– when he’s going for unknowing, uncaring cruelty. He knows better by now, and you don’t know why he bothers pretending with you. “No thank you.”

“Aw come on. I’ll take care of you.”

“You don’t need to have an excuse to take care of me. I’d let you,” you say without thinking about it. It’s true, but…well, Gabriel is also flummoxed, which is the only reason you find your footing. “And I could take care of you.”

He scowls, pulls off the towel and tosses it across the room in one rough motion. He leans in, projecting menace like it could pour from his skin. Only, it technically could. He can hurt you with fear alone, if he truly wants to –accidentally has– but he doesn’t. “I don’t need anyone to take care of me.”

“Neither do I,” you say, unmoving. “That doesn’t mean we don’t want it.”

Gabriel opens his mouth but nothing comes out. He doesn’t speak, screech, scream, click, tsk, laugh, snicker, rumble, grumble, or roar. He moves his hand but drops it just as quick and doesn’t try to gesture, signal, or go into any form of sign language dead or alive. No words pop into your head.

He does something inscrutable with his eyes, too quick to decipher, and disappears.

You sag and slump forward until your forehead hits your knee.

The next morning you open your bag and jump back at the sight of a charred finger laying, erm, ‘cleanly’ on top of your belongings. It looks like a werewolf finger, claw and all. It’s…a middle finger, too, you think. A quick laugh escapes you and later, when you find out the overly friendly diner owner that you had suspected of being the child killer was struck by lightning, it’s all you can do to look sympathetic and not roll your eyes so hard they fly out of your head. Even speechless Gabriel is still a sarcastic asshole. Helpful, but still an asshole.

 

You regret that thought just a little when he doesn’t show up again for a couple of weeks. You hunt on your own and take a few jobs from Bobby, but it’s so quiet that you actually miss the rumbling, the incoherent screeching, and the typical babbling of an angel who just doesn’t like silence.

“What’s got you so down?” Dean asks and tosses a duffle like it’s a weapon.

You catch it and suppress a grunt– it might as well be a weapon, considering it’s _full_ of them. But you don’t give Dean the satisfaction. You just toss it to the ground. “Nothing.”

Dean puts up his hands, mocking defense. You barely start your epic eye roll before a body is in between the two of you and you jump. Dean spits out, “Jesus Christ, Gabriel!” but Gabe is standing there, staring at you. Absently you wonder what’s going to come out of his mouth this time.

Nothing does. No– Gabriel strides right up to you and attaches his mouth to yours in a ferocious, dominant, dizzying kiss that makes you scrabble at his shoulders for purchase. Vaguely you can tell Dean is yelling something in the background but that fades into nothing as all your focus is taken by this one thing, the one thing Gabriel _finally_ figured out how to say when neither of you could.

You laugh into his mouth and he stumbles over a chuckle. “Shut up,” he mumbles and kisses you so hard you can barely breathe. You’re more than happy to oblige.


End file.
